The state Supreme Court ruled in favor of Al Franken, and Norm Coleman has finally abandoned his legal challenges. We have a senator.
Short term I know there are people who are put off by Franken’s history as a humorist and his loud contempt for pundits of the radical right. Long term I think he has the smarts and public demeanor to be a successful senator. If this is true, then he’ll be reelected easily. At that point he’ll have a true mandate from the people of Minnesota.
Meanwhile, we can’t pretend that the outcome is anything more precise than a coin toss. The votes are so close that we’ll never be able to figure out who “really” got the most votes. It’s technically impossible to count votes that accurately.
Continue reading 'Finally – A second Minnesota senator'»
Glenn Greenwald, a commentator in Salon, posted a scary observation in which he compares the U.S. economy to Russia and Argentina. He quotes Desmond Lachman, an IMF expert on emerging markets and former Salomon banker, who notes how we’ve seen the same thing in those emerging markets.
In an emerging market, a banking crisis like this looks like a liquidity crisis, and the government tries to shore things up with an injection of cash. In fact, it’s a solvency crisis. Outsiders like the IMF generally recommend to fix such things with transparency not with cash. Otherwise the local oligarchs will manipulate the crisis to get rich off the ‘recovery’ money. Meanwhile, the IMF and such require the government to reduce spending on social programs to pay for the enrichment of the fat cats.
Continue reading 'Scary Economic Observation'»
Here’s a bit of perspective on President Obama’s scoffing at DC closing schools for snow. I grew up in Northern Virginia, just outside of McLean. My mom grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, which taught her a bit about snow. She rarely drove in the snow, partly because she didn’t trust the Washington area drivers.
Now I live in Minnesota. You’d think that all of us around here would know how to drive in the snow. In fact, we seem to re-teach ourselves every winter after the first “real” snow falls. The problem in DC is that they don’t get enough snow to really learn how to behave. The get just enough to be dangerous.
And, as a kid I thought it was great to have school canceled because an inch of snow fell.
Here are links to our 2008 photo albums for family and friends. If you click on a photo on an “index” page, you get a large version of that photo. You can browse through the pages by clicking the tiny arrows on the page headers.
I’ve migrated everything else to a “photo gallery” site. Our site uses an open source web server called Gallery2, that stores and organizes our photos. Before this, I relied on the web page-building feature of Apple’s Aperture program. Now I’ve found an Aperture add-on that loads photos directly from Aperture to our Gallery2 web site.
Continue reading 'Our 2008 and Older Photo Galleries'»
I admit I’ve found politics pretty bland over the past few decades. That changed when Barak Obama stepped up and reminded Americans what a great orator can do to the political landscape.
Last week, an article in Salon reminded me just how lifeless the political rhetoric has been since the loss of JFK and Dr. King. Kids born since then haven’t had the opportunity to hear a truly inspiring orator. I hadn’t thought about it, but for some reason a recording of a dead orator, regardless of how brilliant, just doesn’t deliver the punch of a speech from a living orator, especially when heard live.
Continue reading 'An apology from a perceptive Gen Xer'»
Kelsey told me to try watching Rachel Maddow even though I don’t generally watch TV news shows or political pundits.
So, in honor of the political season, I tried watching the Rachel Maddow Show. I loved it. It has the perfect blend of sharp intellect, wryness, and respect for facts. I especially liked it when this liberal-leaning show unceremoniously included right wing fixture Pat Buchanan and our own Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty. Maddow treats everyone with respect, but she doesn’t put up with nonsense and she knows how to dig for an answer. Continue reading 'Rachel Maddow Rules!'»
At least one member of the family is uncomfortable endorsing political candidates, especially at the national level. However, the relentlessly negative tone of this year’s campaign demands a response.
Thankfully, Colin Powell did it for me on Meet the Press last weekend. He directly rebuked his old friend, Senator John McCain, for the climate of intolerance in his campaign. I have been praying that someone of stature would finally do that. Despite his UN testimony on Iraqi WMDs, I think he has the stature for this. Continue reading 'God Bless Colin Powell'»
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